Solar Rights. University of Connecticut. From the SelectedWorks of Sara C. Bronin. Sara C Bronin, University of Connecticut

Transcription

1 University of Connecticut From the SelectedWorks of Sara C. Bronin 2009 Solar Rights Sara C Bronin, University of Connecticut Available at:

2 SOLAR RIGHTS SARA C. BRONIN * INTRODUCTION I. WHY INDIVIDUAL SOLAR RIGHTS II. EXPRESS AGREEMENTS A. Express Easements B. Covenants C. Tenancy III. GOVERNMENTAL ALLOCATIONS A. Permits B. Zoning IV. COURT ASSIGNMENTS OF RIGHTS A. Nuisance B. Prescriptive Easements C. Implied Easements CONCLUSION The rights to access and to harness the rays of the sun solar rights are extremely valuable. These rights can determine whether and how an individual can take advantage of the sun s light, warmth, or energy, and they can have significant economic consequences. Accordingly, for at least two thousand years, people have attempted to assign solar rights in a fair and efficient manner. In the United States, attempts to assign solar rights have fallen short. A quarter century ago, numerous American legal scholars debated this deficiency. They agreed that this country lacked a coherent legal framework for the treatment of solar rights, especially given the emergence of solar collector technology that could transform solar energy into thermal, chemical, or electrical energy. These scholars proposed several legal regimes that they believed would clarify solar rights and facilitate increased solar collector use. Very little has changed since this debate about solar rights began. Although some jurisdictions have experimented with scholars suggestions, reforms have not been comprehensive, and solar rights are guaranteed in very few places. At least in part because of the muddled legal regime, and despite numerous * Associate Professor of Law, University of Connecticut School of Law. I would like to thank Professors Jill Anderson, Eric Bluemel, Elizabeth Burleson, Peter Byrne, Nestor Davidson, K.K. DuVivier, Alexandra Klass, Ruth Mason, Jim Salzman, Peter Siegelman, and Kurt Strasser, and the faculties of Arizona State University, University of Connecticut, and University of Denver for their help in shaping this piece. 1217

3 1218 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 89:1217 technological advances that have reduced the cost of solar collectors, only one percent of our nation s energy currently comes from the sun. In this context, this Article aims to reinvigorate and refocus the scholarly debate about solar rights. The Article first explains why solar rights are valuable to both individuals and to the country as a whole. It then analyzes three methods by which solar rights can be allocated: express agreements between property owners, governmental permit systems or zoning ordinances, and court assignments that result from litigation. Although this Article analyzes the concerns of both solar rights seekers and possible burdened parties with respect to current law, it does not fully address the possible solution to the problem of solar rights. Instead, this Article sets the stage for a second piece, Modern Lights, simultaneously being published in the University of Colorado Law Review. INTRODUCTION The rights to access and to harness the rays of the sun solar rights have significant economic consequences. Solar rights dictate whether a property owner can grow crops, illuminate her space without electricity, dry wet clothes, reap the health benefits of natural light, and, perhaps most significantly in our modern era, operate solar collectors devices used to transform solar energy into thermal, chemical, or electrical energy. 1 For at least two thousand years, people have attempted to assign solar rights in a fair and efficient manner. 2 Ancient Romans protected the right to solar heat and light through prescriptive easements, government allocations, and court decrees. 3 Ancient Greeks protected solar rights through rigid land 1 See, e.g., NEB. REV. STAT. ANN (West 2003) (defining a solar energy collector to mean a device, structure, or part of a device or structure which is used primarily to transform solar energy into thermal, chemical, or electrical energy ); John Lungren, Solar Entitlement: A Proposed Legislative Model, 4 J. ENERGY L. & POL Y 171, 186 (1983) (proposing a model statute and defining a solar energy collector to be a structure or portion of a structure which is used to convert solar energy into thermal, chemical, or electrical energy, including any space or structural components specifically designed to retain heat derived from solar energy and any mechanism specifically maintained to produce photosynthetic products ). The term includes such devices as hot water heaters, photovoltaic panels, devices for heating and cooling, domestic hot water systems, pumps, and devices for supplying energy for commercial, industrial, and agriculture processes. 2 See Melvin M. Eisenstadt, Access to Solar Energy: The Problem and Its Current Status, 22 NAT. RESOURCES J. 21, 21 (1982) ( For at least the past 2,000 years, man has heated buildings with solar energy and designed such buildings with access to the needed sunshine. ). 3 GAIL BOYER HAYES, SOLAR ACCESS LAW: PROTECTING ACCESS TO SUNLIGHT FOR SOLAR ENERGY SYSTEMS 14 (1979) (describing an inscription on the Temple of Apollo at Pompeii, which states that the local government had to compensate property owners because a temple blocked their sunlight); Borimir Jordan & John Perlin, Solar Energy Use and Litigation in

4 2009] SOLAR RIGHTS 1219 planning schemes that oriented streets and buildings to take advantage of light and passive solar heat. 4 More recent rules such as the so-called ancient lights rule established in medieval England or the permit system currently used by Japan have continued to refine the concept of solar rights. 5 Each regime has recognized that sunlight, in reaching any one parcel, may travel across multiple parcels, and its route may vary throughout the day and from day to day. By necessity, then, the creation of solar rights implicates the rights of neighbors, both immediate and further afield. In the United States, solar rights have fallen short, either because they do not exist or because, where they do exist, they provide inadequate protection to the holders of the rights. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, numerous American legal scholars debated these deficiencies. These commentators agreed that the absence of a coherent legal framework for the treatment of solar rights had negative consequences, chief among which was the dampening effect on the use of solar collectors. In their view, solar collectors produced an environmentally-friendly, inexhaustible, and economically secure alternative to carbon-based fuels. 6 The law, they argued, should encourage the proliferation of clean energy by providing rights to solar collector owners. These scholars advanced several proposals to change the law to meet this goal. Their Ancient Times, 1 SOLAR L. REP. 583, (1979) (observing that Roman sun rooms were common enough to provoke disputes over solar rights and judicial decrees to settle them ); Stephen Christopher Unger, Ancient Lights in Wrigleyville: An Argument for the Unobstructed View of a National Pastime, 38 IND. L. REV. 533, 548 (2005) (observing that Roman law enforced solar rights as an important source of light and heat ). 4 Jordan & Perlin, supra note 3, at (asserting that Greek planning considered solar energy as early as the fifth century B.C.E. and describing a Greek city whose houses were laid out in a north-south orientation designed to take advantage of passive solar heating). Greeks did not limit their expertise in solar design to buildings; Archimedes used a solar concentrator to burn enemy ships. Donald N. Zillman & Raymond Deeny, Legal Aspects of Solar Energy Development, 1976 ARIZ. ST. L.J. 25, See PATRICK J. DALTON, LAND LAW 189 (1972) (describing how English courts applied the ancient lights concept of negative easements to light and air rights by the seventeenth century); Gail Feingold Takagi, Designs on Sunshine: Solar Access in the United States and Japan, 10 CONN. L. REV. 123, 146 (1977) (describing Japan s motivation for defining solar rights to be securing sunlight for health, with energy conservation of marginal relevance ). 6 W. Wade Berryhill & William H. Parcell III, Guaranteeing Solar Access in Virginia, 13 U. RICH. L. REV. 423, 425 (1979); David L. Bersohn, Securing Solar Energy Rights: Easements, Nuisance, or Zoning?, 3 COLUM. J. ENVTL. L. 112, 112 ( ) (observing that solar energy, unlike traditional forms of energy, does not cause land surface spoliation, black lung and the smog-related respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, oily seas, or thermal or radiological pollution ); see also Zillman & Deeny, supra note 4, at 25 (describing the effects of the 1973 oil embargo, such as long lines at the filling stations, as well as fears about nuclear power). Bersohn also recognizes some of the drawbacks of solar energy: Central solar power generation involves extensive land use preemption, and might cause local aquatic thermal pollution and disrupt atmospheric circulation patterns. Bersohn, supra, at 113.

5 1220 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 89:1217 proposals ranged from revisions to existing statutes, to the use of nuisance suits to bar neighbors from blocking one another s light, to the creation of permit systems or zoning ordinances which administratively allocate solar rights. By the mid-1980s, one commentator observed that [a]lthough these alternatives have been the subject of arguments for years, a clear policy has not yet emerged. 7 To date, despite scholars efforts, progress with respect to the clarification and efficient allocation of solar rights has been slow. A few jurisdictions have experimented with their suggestions, but reforms have not been comprehensive, and solar rights are guaranteed in very few jurisdictions. At least in part because of the muddled legal regime, and despite numerous technological advances that have reduced the cost of solar collectors, only one percent of our nation s energy currently comes from the sun. 8 Many communities, reeling from record-high oil prices in 2008, have expressed an interest in prioritizing solar energy, but the tension between the legal system and solar collector usage has not been resolved. 9 In the context of an increasingly urgent debate over global warming and the need to reduce America s dependence on carbon-based fuels, this Article aims to reinvigorate the scholarly debate about solar rights, with a focus on the solar collector as one important use. Part I explains why we should reinvigorate the debate: solar access is valuable not just to individuals, but also to the country as a whole. Part I also argues that we need individual, as opposed to communal, solar rights. The Article goes on to present three primary methods by which solar rights are currently allocated to and among individuals: express agreements between property owners, governmental allocations, and court assignments. In analyzing each method, this Article focuses on two concepts: first, efficiency, defined as the extent to which the rights are in the end allocated to those who value them most and that proper compensation is paid to those who are hurt by such allocation; second, transaction costs, which are the administrative, monitoring, and/or information costs incurred during an exchange of a right, beyond the cost of the right itself. Although these two 7 Lungren, supra note 1, at 172 ( Solar access is not a new legal issue. Minimal access protection has been sought through application of land use controls, nuisance doctrine, prior appropriation, easements, and restrictive covenants. ). 8 Yuliya Chernova, Shedding Light on Solar, WALL ST. J., June 30, 2008, at R6 ( [D]espite subsidies that have helped push up demand, solar power still accounts for less than 1% of power generation in the U.S. That s because even with subsidies, solar power remains expensive compared with energy based on traditional fuels like coal and natural gas. ). 9 See, e.g., SCOTT ANDERS, KEVIN GRIGSBY & CAROLYN ADI KUDUK, UNIV. OF SAN DIEGO SCH. OF LAW, CALIFORNIA S SOLAR SHADE CONTROL ACT: A REVIEW OF THE STATUTES AND RELEVANT CASES 1 (2007) (documenting the goal of the California Solar Initiative to multiply the photovoltaic megawatt production by nearly seventeen times and asserting that [s]uch a drastic increase in the number of operating photovoltaic systems in addition to the anticipated increase in solar water heaters could multiply solar access questions arising from these installations ).

6 2009] SOLAR RIGHTS 1221 concepts clarify the shortcomings of existing solar rights, increasing efficiency and reducing transaction costs may not be the only goals for an ideal future solar rights regime, a topic that is considered in a companion piece to this Article. Attention is also paid to which party the benefited party or the burdened party has the initial entitlement under each regime, as the assignment of the initial entitlement can influence both efficiency and transaction costs. 10 Express agreements, such as express easements, covenants, and tenancy arrangements, are discussed in Part II. Through an express agreement, two or more property owners can agree to a method of allocating solar rights, provided that the government does not prohibit such methods, or, even better, expressly allows them. The initial entitlement in these cases is, by default, in the hands of the burdened party or, when a solar collector is involved, in the hands of the potential obstructer. From an efficiency standpoint, these arrangements are perhaps the most effective means of allocation. In the ideal case, they involve parties with some knowledge about the rights they have (and choose to relinquish) or receive (and choose to pay for). These parties bargain based on the values they respectively place on the receipt or relinquishment of that right. Unfortunately, express agreements involve very high transaction costs. Individuals may be required to pay for attorneys, conduct title searches, and spend valuable time drafting express agreements. Moreover, the exchange of a solar right using an express agreement may involve multiple parties who take too long to (or never) agree on the appropriate allocation. Part III of this Article describes how the government can allocate solar rights an arrangement that may in some ways be more efficient with respect to transaction costs than the express agreements described in Part II. Governmental allocations may occur through the award of solar permits or through zoning decisions. Typically, these rights are awarded through standard procedures that usually include petitioning a public decision-making body. Depending on the regime, the initial entitlement may be in the hands of either the benefited or burdened party: a zoning ordinance, for example, might establish solar rights for all owners of solar collectors within its jurisdiction, whereas a permit system might exist where the default rule is the absence of solar rights for anyone. In one sense, transaction costs may be low because the process is well defined: a public body must typically make a decision in accordance with established rules and schedules. In other respects, however, government awards may be quite costly: the individualized allocation process can be tedious, and may still require that rights seekers hire attorneys and other professionals. More significantly, government allocations are far from predictable or uniform, and do not necessarily result in awards that are truly justified on efficiency grounds. 10 See Sara C. Bronin, Modern Lights, 80 U. COLO. L. REV. (forthcoming Nov. 2009) (describing in Part II the consequences of the assignment of the initial entitlement).

7 1222 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 89:1217 Finally, Part IV deals with court-assigned rights perhaps the least efficient and most costly method of obtaining a solar right. In the rare instance in which a court has considered solar rights using nuisance, prescriptive easement, or implied easement principles it usually has failed to award solar rights to the party who could maximize their use. As one commentator observed, The courts are a weak ally to the contemporary solar energy user. 11 Transaction costs are highest (when compared with the other two methods considered by this Article) for court-assigned rights. Each case may be very complicated, and litigation is expensive relative to the value of the right. The three current methods of allocating solar rights vary greatly, and although each attempts to balance competing interests, each falls short in certain respects. Throughout Parts II through IV, this Article dissects the inability of the current legal regime to respond to the pressing problem of solar rights. The criticisms contained here are not meant to imply that the current regimes are unsalvageable. Rather, they underscore the need for a new approach to solar rights. A companion piece to this Article will flesh out some elements of the new approach. 12 I. WHY INDIVIDUAL SOLAR RIGHTS Except in a few limited circumstances, the American legal system has not recognized the solar right the ability of a property owner to enjoy or utilize a defined amount of sunlight on her parcel and to defend this right as against other property owners. Yet there are at least two strong reasons for this country to do so, especially as such rights might apply to solar collectors. First, solar access is extremely valuable to the individuals who have it. The quality and amount of sunlight which reaches a structure s interior, for example, affects three economic measures: the resale price of the structure, as buyers will pay premiums for naturally lit space; the productivity of the structure s occupants, who work better with sunlight than artificial light; and the operating costs of heating, cooling, and lighting systems. 13 Similarly, the use of sunlight in outdoor areas can have financial consequences: a property owner can grow garden vegetables, produce commercial crops for resale, or use sunlight instead of electricity to dry laundry all of which save or generate income. Perhaps most importantly, solar collectors, for which sunlight is the primary and essential ingredient, almost always save owners more in energy costs than the purchase price, and rapid technological developments have 11 Kenneth James Potis, Solar Access Rights in Florida: Is There a Right to Sunlight in the Sunshine State?, 10 NOVA L.J. 125, 145 (1985). 12 Bronin, Modern Lights, supra note GREGORY H. KATS, THE COSTS AND FINANCIAL BENEFITS OF GREEN BUILDINGS: A REPORT TO CALIFORNIA S SUSTAINABLE BUILDING TASK FORCE 65 (2003) (summarizing the results of eight studies which indicated that natural light helped to increase worker productivity by a mean of 7.1%); Franklin Gevurtz, Obstruction of Sunlight as a Private Nuisance, 65 CAL. L. REV. 94, 106 (1977).

8 2009] SOLAR RIGHTS 1223 rendered them increasingly more valuable and will continue to do so in years to come. 14 The recognition that solar access has value to individuals must serve as the basis for any solar rights regime. Second, a solar rights regime also has value to the country as a whole. There is increasing awareness of the dangers of overdependence on fossil fuels, both from an environmental and geopolitical standpoint. However, our failure to consider solar rights appropriately has dampened investment in domestic solar collectors efficient producers of clean energy because it is difficult to justify substantial up-front investments in solar collectors without a guarantee of solar access. The reluctance to invest in solar collectors has affirmed our dependence on foreign fossil fuels. The energy conservation and energy security rationales for solar rights go hand in hand and have been discussed for decades. 15 A chorus of commentators writing thirty years ago praised solar energy and solar collectors and called our failure to recognize solar rights an impediment to widespread conversion to solar energy, 16 the single most important legal issue concerning solar energy, 17 and the major legal issue associated with solar energy. 18 Although the need for guaranteed property rights in solar access has grown more acute, we have failed to modify the law to provide them. In light of these two important reasons for a solar rights regime, it is worth emphasizing why this regime must be tailored to provide rights to individual property owners. Some might question the need for complex legal systems that support small-scale individual, as opposed to large-scale communal, solar installations. They might point to the fact that investors have purchased large 14 See, e.g., U.S. ENVTL. PROTECTION AGENCY, IMPROVE ENERGY EFFICIENCY WITH SOLAR WATER HEATING (2001), available at features/essolarwaterheating.pdf (observing that fifteen to twenty-five percent of energy use in residential buildings is devoted to heating hot water, and a solar water heater can reduce annual operating costs by up to eighty percent); SANDY F. KRAEMER, SOLAR LAW: PRESENT AND FUTURE, WITH PROPOSED FORMS 7 (1978) (observing that [i]n buildings, the overwhelming bulk of the average building s energy requirement, 70% or more, is for lowgrade heat which can be provided by solar systems ). 15 See, e.g., Sophia Douglass Pfeiffer, Ancient Lights: Legal Protection of Access to Solar Energy, 68 A.B.A. J. 288, 291 (1982) (asserting that [i]t would indeed be regrettable if the demonstrated need for utilization of solar energy a technological reality today were to be left unmet because of the modern legal system s inability to devise adequate measures to protect solar access ); cf. Takagi, supra note 5, at 146 (describing Japan s rationale for solar access as being based upon securing sunlight for health, with energy conservation of marginal relevance ). 16 Dale D. Goble, Solar Rights: Guaranteeing a Place in the Sun, 57 OR. L. REV. 94, 134 (1977). Goble also called the access issue the fundamental legal impediment to the use of solar collectors. Id. at Berryhill & Parcell, supra note 6, at Adrian J. Bradbrook, Future Directions in Solar Access Protection, 19 ENVTL. L. 167, 168 (1988).

9 1224 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 89:1217 tracts of rural land across the country to collect and distribute solar power to multiple end users. 19 Large solar installations on vast rural parcels with few neighbors may not require a full solar rights regime. If this country could depend on large installations, it might be argued, no individual solar rights regime is necessary. Yet we cannot depend on large installations to satisfy all solar power demand. They do not, and could not, produce enough energy to meet everrising demands for green power. The end users of large installations include only those people who live within the area that can be reached by transmission lines. Many large installations are concentrated in the South and the West, and do not serve individuals in other parts of the country. Even those who do receive solar power from large plants might receive less than they should, as capacity is lost during transmission through notoriously inefficient electric lines. Finally, large solar installations have been criticized (and sometimes stalled) by environmental advocates who believe that they disrupt delicately balanced ecological systems. 20 While the growing number of large installations may signal that the market has begun to embrace the economies of scale, the need for small installations remains. Individual solar collectors can serve the many end users that are not reachable by large solar installations. In addition, individual solar collectors allow individuals to benefit directly from their investment; solar power offered by the owners of large installations is not generally sold to end users at cost, but instead at prices which approach conventional power prices. When it comes to the environment, individual solar collectors have a smaller negative impact than do large installations. And finally, individual solar collectors are more efficient than large installations because they are installed near the end user, meaning that little is lost during transmission. In theory, there is a middle ground between the individual solar collector and the large solar installation: a mid-sized facility, which might, for example, serve a small urban neighborhood with costs divided equally among neighbors within a few blocks. This Article does not consider the legal complexities that relate to such shared generation because each state s rules differ significantly. Mid-sized facilities generating power to multiple end users might, for example, have to incorporate as an electric utility, file paperwork with the public utility control commission, submit to the governance of an electric cooperative, or 19 See, e.g., Todd Woody, The Southwest Desert s Real Estate Boom, CNNMONEY.COM, July 11, 2008, index.htm (focusing on land banking in the Mojave Desert for solar uses). 20 Id.; see also Bersohn, supra note 6 at 113 ( Central solar power generation involves extensive land use preemption, and might cause local aquatic thermal pollution and disrupt atmospheric circulation patterns. ).

10 2009] SOLAR RIGHTS 1225 obey other rules. Most states rules are so onerous that mid-sized solar facilities are rare. 21 Yet it is worth noting that some issues faced by individual landowners with respect to solar rights would also be faced by those who collectively form a mid-sized solar facility, especially in urban areas. The mid-sized facility, like the individual solar collector owner, would somehow have to obtain rights across other parcels to ensure solar access. Similarly, although large-scale rural installations might not seem to require solar rights initially, the need for solar rights may arise if development patterns around the installation site change. Even though this Article focuses on individual solar rights, any advance in solar rights would also benefit operators of mid-sized and urban solar facilities, or even large-scale or rural installations. This Article will now examine some of the methods for allocating solar rights, whatever the size of the need. II. EXPRESS AGREEMENTS The first and perhaps most straightforward method of assigning solar rights is by express agreements between private parties, where these agreements have been implicitly or explicitly authorized by law. Express agreements are the most efficient means of allocating solar rights to the respective parties: each party understands her rights and has received compensation in some form or amount to which she has consented. Usually, the compensated parties are those who would have had the initial entitlement under the law the burdened parties, and not the solar rights seekers. Used as devices to reassign these initial entitlements, express agreements come with significant transaction costs: bargaining is time-consuming and expensive, especially when attorneys must be hired and formalities must be followed. 22 Transaction costs may be particularly high in bilateral monopoly situations, where the possible parties to an express agreement are limited to a small number of individuals. 23 These costs hinder the creation of express solar agreements. 24 Despite the costs, the law has allowed at least three types of express agreements to serve as the basis for a solar right. The first type, express easements, typically involves neighbors in established areas and requires individualized negotiation. The second, covenants, which bind current and subsequent owners, function best in new residential subdivisions but are 21 In a search, the author could not find any examples of shared solar cooperatives of this nature. 22 Any time bargaining is required, as it is in the case of express agreements, high transaction costs are likely. See Robert Cooter, The Cost of Coase, 11 J. LEG. STUD. 1, 23 (1982). 23 See, e.g., ROBERT COOTER & THOMAS ULEN, LAW AND ECONOMICS (2007). 24 Admittedly, data on this point is limited, and determining the number of express solar agreements in the country is, practically speaking, impossible; however, the infrequency of their appearance in courts and in legal literature reveals that these barriers are significant.

11 1226 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 89:1217 difficult to enact in established or nonresidential areas. Third, and least-used, lessor-lessee arrangements tie the solar right to the term of tenancy a limitation that hinders up-front investment in solar collectors. Although each of these agreements has a slightly different nature, each might be instructive in considering a better solar rights regime. A. Express Easements The creation of an easement requires rigorous bargaining by multiple parties, and the resulting high transaction costs prevent large-scale adoption of easements that guarantee solar rights. Easements allow one landowner (the dominant owner) to have certain rights over the real property of another landowner (the servient owner). 25 These rights take one of two forms: affirmative rights that entitle the dominant owner to physical access of the servient parcel; and negative rights that encumber the servient owner s use of her property, usually preventing the servient owner from undertaking particular activities. An easement does not grant the dominant owner ownership rights, but rather allows the dominant owner to enforce the rights contained in the easement. These enforcement powers endure, and remain with the land for subsequent purchasers, until and unless some event or condition renders them unenforceable. Solar easements, a kind of negative easement, can create solar rights between dominant and servient owners by burdening the servient owner s use of her property. 26 More specifically, a solar easement can prevent a servient owner from improving her property in a way that blocks sunlight from falling on all or part of the dominant estate (in effect, defining a solar skyspace). Although it is possible to argue that the common law contemplates solar easements, legislation allowing landowners to create express solar easements avoids ambiguity and has become popular. 27 At least twenty-eight state statutes allow the creation and recording of express easements for solar access by private landowners. 28 Solar easement statutes do not themselves create 25 BLACK S LAW DICTIONARY (9th ed. 2009). 26 Id. at 587 (defining a negative easement as [a]n easement that prohibits the servient-estate owner from doing something, such as building an obstruction ). 27 See Adrian J. Bradbrook, Australian and American Perspectives on the Protection of Solar and Wind Access, 28 NAT. RESOURCES J. 229, 238 (1988) (explaining that [w]ith respect to solar access, the most widespread form of legislation adopted in the United States is legislation recognizing the validity of an easement for solar access ). 28 ALASKA STAT (2008) (requiring writing and recording of the size of the easement, any terms and conditions, and compensation for [a]n easement obtained for the purpose of protecting the exposure of property to the direct rays of the sun ); CAL. CIV. CODE (West 2007); COLO. REV. STAT to -103 (2008) (allowing injunctive relief [i]n addition to other legal remedies ); FLA. STAT. ANN (West 2000) (requiring six elements in written and recorded easements and protecting solar easements from extinguishment by allowing a solar collector owner to file a notice); GA. CODE ANN to -23 (2002) (requiring that solar easements be in writing and

12 2009] SOLAR RIGHTS 1227 include a description of airspace and any terms and conditions of the granting or termination); IDAHO CODE ANN (2007) (requiring writing and recording of the size of the easement, any terms and conditions, and compensation for an easement obtained for the purpose of exposure of a solar energy device to sunlight ); 30 ILL. COMP. STAT. ANN. 725/1.2 (West 2001 & Supp. 2008) (allowing solar skyspace easements for structures, vegetation, or other activity as long as the easement is described in three-dimensional terms and includes performance criteria for adequate collection of solar energy ); IOWA CODE ANN. 564A.7 (West 1992) (requiring that solar access easements be in writing and include a legal description of the dominant and servient estates and of the space through which the easement extends, in addition to optional provisions such as compensating the burdened owner); KAN. STAT. ANN to (2005); KY. REV. STAT. ANN (2) (LexisNexis 2002) ( A solar easement may be obtained for the purpose of ensuring access to direct sunlight. ); ME. REV. STAT. ANN. tit. 33, 1401 (1999) (providing that such easements run with the land and are subject to court-decreed abandonment and other limitations); MD. CODE ANN., REAL PROP (LexisNexis 2003) (establishing an incorporeal property interest... enforceable in both law and equity for easements, conditions, or restrictions which relate to the [p]reservation of exposure of solar energy devices ); MINN. STAT. ANN (West 2002 & Supp. 2009) (analogizing solar easements to any other conveyance and providing enforcement for solar easements by injunction or other proceedings in equity); MO. ANN. STAT (West 2000) (calling solar energy a property right, not subject to eminent domain, for which easements must be expressly negotiated); MONT. CODE ANN to -302 (2007) (requiring that size, terms and conditions, and termination provisions of an easement be in writing); NEB. REV. STAT to -911 (2003) (defining a solar skyspace easement and requiring a description of the vertical and horizontal angles of the easement); NEV. REV. STAT (2007) (providing detailed definitions of the easement, its vesting, and three methods of termination); N.H. REV. STAT. ANN. 447:49-:50 (2001) (defining a solar skyspace easement to include the easement form and requiring certain information to be provided therein); N.J. STAT. ANN. 46:3-24 to -26 (West 2003) (requiring writing and recording of the size of the easement, any terms and conditions, and compensation); N.D. CENT. CODE to.2 (1999); OHIO REV. CODE ANN (LexisNexis 2004) (describing five necessary elements for solar access easements and allowing for owners of benefited land to access any equitable remedy and damages for obstruction); OR. REV. STAT. ANN ,.895 (West 2003 & Supp. 2008); R.I. GEN. LAWS to -2 (1995) (defining solar easement to include restrictions, easements, covenants, or conditions to a deed for the purpose of ensuring adequate exposure of a solar energy system ); TENN. CODE ANN to -206 (2004) (providing the statutory assumption that such easement runs with the land); UTAH CODE ANN to -2 (2000) (defining solar easements, setting out writing requirements and allowing enforcement by injunction); VA. CODE ANN to -354 (2007) (requiring writing and recording of the size of the easement, any terms and conditions, and compensation for solar easements); WASH. REV. CODE ANN (West 2005) (including the requirement for a description of the extent of the solar easement which is sufficiently certain to allow the owner of the real property subject to the easement to ascertain the extent of the easement, and providing remedies such as actual damages, reasonable attorney s fees, and injunctions); WIS. STAT. ANN (West 2001) (defining renewable energy resource easement as an easement which limits the height or location, or both, of permissible development on the

13 1228 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 89:1217 easements, but allow private entities and political subdivisions to create them. 29 The majority of states require such easements to be in writing and contain detailed information about the size of the affected space, the manner of termination, and compensation. 30 In most jurisdictions, the easement must also be recorded on the land records, to provide notice to individuals researching the dominant or servient estates. Express solar easements have several benefits. Most obviously, each party to an easement has voluntarily bargained to a mutually agreeable result: the dominant owner receives a solar corridor, while the servient owner receives compensation to offset her burden. 31 Another key advantage for dominant owners is the receipt of a property right that is usually permanent and irrevocable. 32 Finally, private parties make and enforce solar easements, therefore obviating the need for unnecessary governmental bureaucracy. 33 As burdened land in terms of a structure or vegetation, or both, for the purpose of providing access for the benefited land to wind or sunlight passing over the burdened land ). 29 See Lungren, supra note 1, at 180. But see O Neill v. Brown, 609 N.E.2d 835, 840 (Ill. App. Ct. 1993) (finding that the Illinois Comprehensive Solar Energy Act, 30 ILL. COMP. STAT. 725/1.2(f)(1) (2008), defined a solar skyspace easement but did not allow such easements to be created). 30 See John William Gergacz, Legal Aspects of Solar Energy: Statutory Approaches for Access to Sunlight, 10 B.C. ENVTL. AFF. L. REV. 1, (1982); Dennis L. Phelps & Richard R. Yoxall, Solar Energy: An Analysis of the Implementation of Solar Zoning, 17 WASHBURN L.J. 146, ( ); Erik J.A. Swensen et al., State and Local Policies Affecting the Advancement of Renewable Energy Sources, ABA ENERGY COMMS. NEWSLETTER, Jan. 2007, at 10, available at energy/newsletter/jan07/energy0107.pdf. 31 See, e.g., Eisenstadt, supra note 2, at 25; Shawn M. Lyden, An Integrated Approach to Solar Access, 34 CASE W. RES. L. REV. 367, 395 ( ); Stephen F. Williams, Solar Access and Property Rights: A Maverick Analysis, 11 CONN. L. REV. 430, 437 (1979) ( Setting aside occasional lunacies, no one will sell solar rights to a neighbor unless the consideration is at least equal to the value of what he foregoes, in terms of opportunities to enlarge his house, grow trees, or whatever. And since no one will pay more for solar rights than what they are worth to him, all transfers that occur will be beneficial ones. ). But see Dale D. Goble, Solar Access and Property Rights: Reply to a Maverick Analysis, 12 CONN. L. REV. 270, (1979) (criticizing Williams s assumption that efficiency can determine entitlements, arguing instead that entitlements determine efficiency). 32 See, e.g., Howard R. Osofsky, Solar Building Envelopes: A Zoning Approach for Protecting Residential Solar Access, 15 URB. LAW. 637, (1983); Donald N. Zillman, Common-Law Doctrines and Solar Energy, in LEGAL ASPECTS OF SOLAR ENERGY 25, 31 (John H. Minian & William H. Lawrence eds., 1981) ( The easement is a satisfactory legal device for the solar user. He has no particular desire to own the neighbor s property. He only needs to keep adequate direct sunlight streaming across the neighbor s land to his collectors or passive construction. This limited use can allow the neighbor to retain a wide variety of uses on his property, including the installation of solar equipment of his own. ). 33 Osofsky, supra note 32, at 641 ( Solar easements require minimum government involvement and are not affected by zoning changes on adjacent property. ). But see infra

14 2009] SOLAR RIGHTS 1229 a result of these benefits, as one scholar put it, solar easement statutes have become a popular and inexpensive form of legislative cheerleading. 34 This form of legislative cheerleading has not, however, borne much fruit: a search of federal and state cases revealed not a single case dealing with express solar easements. 35 An optimist might suggest that the lack of cases reveals that express easements function well. More likely, it reflects the fact that such easements are rare. Indeed, the primary benefit of the solar easement its voluntary nature may also prevent its widespread adoption. Potential obstructers might disagree on the terms of an easement or refuse to negotiate altogether. 36 Even when all parties agree to negotiate, solar easements take time to formulate. 37 Moreover, negotiations cost money not just for attorneys fees, recording fees, and other administrative costs, but for the easement itself, as a servient owner will more likely sell a solar easement than donate it. 38 Servient owners may overcharge for easements, either because they overvalue their interests 39 or because their relationships with the dominant owners function as a bilateral monopoly, each side being the only possible party to a transaction. 40 These costs may increase the already-high cost of text accompanying notes (describing Iowa s approach in which state government plays a role in the creation of solar easements). 34 Zillman, supra note 32, at The author conducted several such searches and found no such cases. 36 Osofsky, supra note 32, at 641. The lone exception to this grant of initial entitlements occurs in Iowa. See infra text accompanying notes See Goble, supra note 31, at 287 (asserting that unequal bargaining positions, the possibility of multiple parties, novelty, inertia, and drafting complexities increase transaction costs); Williams, supra note 31, at (reasoning that transaction costs may be higher in developed areas than in areas which are not yet developed). 38 Tamara C. Sampson & R. Alta Charo, Access to Sunlight: Resolving Legal Issues to Encourage the Use of Solar Energy, 11 COLUM. J. ENVTL. L. 417, 424 (1986) ( The costs of the easement include both substantive costs for the restrictions on property use, and transaction costs, such as drafting agreements. ). 39 See Williams, supra note 31, at 443 (identifying landowners competing claims: for the solar collector, lower energy costs; for the neighbor, the desire to perhaps enjoy fullgrown trees, whose shade could lower the neighbor s energy costs); Felicity Barringer, Trees Block Solar Panels, and a Feud Ends in Court, N.Y. TIMES, Apr. 7, 2008, at A14 (describing two California neighbors competing interests in redwood trees and solar access for photovoltaic panels). 40 Cf. Lyden, supra note 31, at 395 (stating that even a cooperative landowner may charge the solar user an exhorbitant [sic] price for the easement and easements are only capable of protecting access for sited solar systems ); Carol Polis, Note, Obtaining Access to Solar Energy: Nuisance, Water Rights, and Zoning Administration, 45 BROOK. L. REV. 357, 364 ( ) (stating that such agreements possibly curtail[] the use of this alternative energy source because the owner of the airspace could demand an exorbitant price ).

15 1230 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 89:1217 solar energy systems and make them less attractive than cheaper forms of energy. 41 At least some of these costs stem from the assignment of initial entitlements: in the vast majority of jurisdictions, the initial entitlement rests with the potential obstructer, or the potential servient owner. 42 The potential obstructer may never agree to an easement; even if she does, she has the power to set a high price on the easement. 43 Because express easements often involve bilateral monopolies, an individual party can hold out or demand exorbitant compensation if she does not want to give up her entitlement. The assignment of the entitlement thus inhibits greater use of solar collectors. 44 One state, Iowa, assigns the initial entitlement in solar easements in a way that avoids at least some transaction costs. 45 Like other states, Iowa allows users to create solar easements voluntarily. 46 When a potential obstructer holds out, however, Iowa authorizes local regulatory boards to create easements without the burdened landowner s consent, provided that the burdened landowner receives just compensation. 47 Local legislative bodies may establish solar access regulatory boards which govern applications for solar easements. 48 An applicant must submit a statement of need, the legal description of the estates, a description of the solar collector, an explanation of the application s reasonableness, and a statement that the applicant has attempted to negotiate an easement. 49 The law requires the review board to grant compensation for burdened property owners based on the difference between the fair market value of the property prior to and after granting the solar access easement. 50 Anecdotally, the statute has encouraged voluntary 41 Eisenstadt, supra note 2, at 25; Gevurtz, supra note 13, at See, e.g., Polis, supra note 40, at 364 ( The Colorado statute, by requiring that the right be bought, in effect grants the entitlement of solar access to the potential obstructor, who is allowed to establish the cost. ). 43 See ALAN S. MILLER ET AL., SOLAR ACCESS AND LAND USE: STATE OF THE LAW 4 (1977) (describing the windfall received by an owner of burdened property as unjustified). 44 Goble, supra note 16, at 103 ( [T]he current assignment of the right is not conducive to the use of solar energy. While economic theory suggests that the initial assignment of a property interest will have no effect on resource allocation if the right is freely transferable, the theory assumes that transactions are costless. In fact, transaction costs are often substantial. ). 45 See IOWA CODE ANN. 564A.7.1 (West 1992) ( Persons, including public bodies, may voluntarily agree to create a solar access easement. ). 46 See id. 564A Id. 564A.1-.9 (summarizing the procedures to obtain access to solar energy). The just compensation requirement attempts to avoid challenges under the Takings Clause of the Constitution. 48 Id. 564A.2(7), Id. 564A.4 (describing these and other requirements of the application). 50 Id. 564A.5(3).

16 2009] SOLAR RIGHTS 1231 agreements. 51 The Iowa approach reflects a sensible statutory solution to the holdout problem. 52 B. Covenants In certain circumstances, covenants, a second type of express agreement, avoid the difficulties of express easements in promoting solar rights. Like express easements, covenants include conditions that run with the land and endure indefinitely. 53 Covenant conditions range widely in substance and may involve usage, characteristics of future purchasers, building configuration, site planning, aesthetic regulations, noise rules, and financial assessments, among other things. A covenant must be recorded on the land records in sufficient detail to provide notice of the existence and substance of the covenant. The recording and notice requirement allows the cost or benefit of the covenant to be incorporated into the purchase price of a parcel. 54 In this sense, covenants are efficient; purchasers with knowledge implicitly agree to incorporate the terms of the covenant in their purchase. Covenants also appear to be fair, because they often burden or benefit the owners of multiple parcels in the same way, with the same provisions applied to parcels in a geographically contiguous area, and because purchasers take land with notice of the covenant. The right to enforce (or the standing to overturn) covenants is shared between the owner of a covenanted property, other property owners burdened or benefited by the same covenant, and subsequent purchasers. 55 Covenants appear most often, and function best, in residential neighborhoods with relatively homogenous lot sizes and structure types Potis, supra note 11, at 142 n Gergacz, supra note 30, at 30 (calling the Iowa statute a grant of eminent domain to individual solar energy users... [which nonetheless] seems to be... equitable and workable ). 53 BLACK S LAW DICTIONARY, supra note 25, at See John William Gergacz, Solar Energy Law: Easements of Access to Sunlight, 10 N.M. L. REV. 121, 136 ( ) (highlighting the importance of the legal description of the parcel by saying that [c]areful drafting would be required if the solar access rights were created either by express covenant or by express easement ). 55 Berryhill & Parcell, supra note 6, at 438; Debra L. Stangl, Comment, Assuring Legal Access to Solar Energy: An Overview with Proposed Legislation for the State of Nebraska, 12 CREIGHTON L. REV. 567, 609 ( ). Note that easement rights, by contrast, vest in only the servient and dominant owners. 56 Berryhill & Parcell, supra note 6, at 439 (commenting on covenants limited applicability to established neighborhoods and commercially and industrially developed land where structures are not of uniform size and height ); Jesse L. Matuson, A Legislative Approach to Solar Access: Transferable Development Rights, 13 NEW ENG. L. REV. 835, 846 (1978) (criticizing restrictive covenants as being unhelpful in established neighborhoods and commercial and industrial areas).

17 1232 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 89:1217 Some critics have called covenants a two-edged sword because they can be used to either inhibit or enhance the use of solar systems. 57 Covenants may limit building and tree heights, govern the use of certain technologies, and mandate aesthetic guidelines. Depending on the specific requirement, each condition could either facilitate or hinder the use of solar collectors. 58 A developer may inadvertently thwart the installation of solar collectors by creating a covenant with financial gain, not solar access, in mind. 59 For example, she may ask her attorney to draft a covenant that prohibits the installation of equipment on rooftops. In the developer s mind, this covenant would ensure a uniform aesthetic and thereby preserve or enhance property values. For the potential solar user, however, the covenant precludes (or at least renders ambiguous) the possibility of locating a solar collector on the roof often the most practical location for a collector. Litigation to clarify the covenant would be costly and inconvenient, and a property owner may simply avoid the installation of the solar collector altogether. 60 To avoid such scenarios, some states have begun to legislate for covenants that promote, rather than hinder, solar collector use. Although courts will enforce covenants for solar access even if legislatures do not specifically authorize them, 61 several states have made their authorization explicit. 62 At least a dozen states go further, voiding restrictive covenants or deed conditions if they unreasonably restrict or increase the cost of a solar system. 63 Three 57 Eisenstadt, supra note 2, at 26 (mentioning that many developments with architectural review boards reject solar access because of aesthetic concerns). See also Matuson, supra note 56, at 846 ( Restrictive covenants are excellent tools to secure access in new developments. ). 58 See Berryhill & Parcell, supra note 6, at 438 (describing covenants which facilitate solar use as restrict[ing] the height and placement of structures and trees so as to avoid blocking of solar collectors of users within the subdivision ); Eisenstadt, supra note 2, at Eisenstadt, supra note 2, at 27 ( [T]he developer exercises his own discretion in deciding whether to impose such covenants. ). 60 See Kraye v. Old Orchard Ass n, No. C (Cal. Super. Ct., Feb. 28, 1979) (reported in Current Developments, 1 SOLAR L. REP. 3, 8 (1979)) (considering this question and relying on a state statute to find in favor of the solar user). 61 Gergacz, supra note 54, at See, e.g., MD. CODE ANN., REAL PROP (7) (LexisNexis 2003) (authorizing the creation of covenants which relate to the [p]reservation of exposure of solar energy devices ); NEB. REV. STAT (2003) (defining solar skyspace easement to include covenants); N.H. REV. STAT. ANN. 477:49-:50 (2001); R.I. GEN. LAWS to -2 (1995); UTAH CODE ANN to -2 (2000); WASH. REV. CODE ANN (1)(b) (West 2005). 63 ARIZ. REV. STAT. ANN A (2007); CAL. CIV. CODE 714(a)-(b) (West 2007 & Supp. 2009) (voiding [a]ny covenant, restriction, or condition contained in any deed, contract, security instrument, or other instrument affecting the transfer or sale of, or any interest in, real property that effectively prohibits or restricts the installation or use of a solar energy system unless such restrictions do not significantly increase the cost of the system